An apologetic Nico Rosberg has publicly accepted responsibility for the ‘error of judgement’ which caused his collision with Lewis Hamilton at the Belgian GP – and claimed the incident, which resulted in him leaving Spa with a 29-point advantage in the World Championship, feeling ‘distraught’
Rosberg refused to admit his culpability for the second-lap clash immediately after the race, but has now accepted that the accident, which punctured Hamilton’s Mercedes, was his fault.
Writing in The Daily Mail, Rosberg admits: ‘I took a lot of time to reflect on the events of the weekend – and we met as a team to discuss it last Friday, too. I analysed the whole situation in a lot of detail and reached the conclusion that I had to take responsibility for what happened because it was my error of judgement.
‘It didn’t matter what part of right and wrong was involved, the fact is that it happened and I did not do a good enough job to avoid a collision between our two cars.’
We look back at the incidents between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in the Belgian Grand Prix. Hamilton claimed that, in a post-mortem conducted by the Mercedes team immediately after the controversial race, Rosberg had admitted causing the accident ‘on purpose’ by refusing to avoid the clash.
Confirming that he apologised to Hamilton during an ‘intense’ second debrief held at the team’s Brackley headquarters last Friday, Rosberg, who is believed to have been hit by a six-figure fine, added: ‘In hindsight, the collision was my responsibility because I was the car trying to overtake, so I have to accept that I made a mistake and to apologise.’
